Memory leak detectors play a key role in a number of applications that require protection against software errors, such as server applications, and the like. In a typical computer system, a memory leak detector might be used in a software development, or diagnostic system to find memory leaks.
Memory leaks give rise to inefficiencies in a computer system, and may cause system failure. Programmers often allocate and deallocate memory during the execution of a program. However, the allocation of memory is often inefficient, giving rise to memory leaks.